EN SHEMEN, ISRAEL — Placing her fingers in bullet holes scarring the wall of a home in southern Israel, Tabitha Barnes turned and watched smoke plumes rise from Gaza, three miles away. 

“When you’re looking at the smoke rising to the air, and then on this side putting your fingers in the bullet holes in the buildings, it makes it real — the devastation of war on both sides and the pain of that,” she said.

Barnes, a member of the Memorial Church of Christ in Houston, spoke with The Christian Chronicle at Ben Shemen Youth Village, a boarding school about 25 miles northwest of Jerusalem. 

At a picnic table under a pine tree on her day off, Shabbat, the Christian recalled the heartbreaking experience of her first days in the country. 

Serving in a war zone was the farthest thing from her mind when she Googled “teacher travel summer free” earlier this year.

A Reddit forum led her to the Israel Program for Excellence in English, known by its Hebrew acronym TALMA. 

The organization was recruiting licensed educators for its summer fellowship to teach English to Israeli school children displaced by the Israel-Hamas war. 

An educator at Westchester Academy for International Studies in Texas, Barnes teaches philosophy and English during the school year, which made her eligible for TALMA’s summer fellowship. 

But before teaching English in an Israeli classroom, Barnes first had to learn about trauma-informed care. 

“Some of the students themselves were held hostage for a time,” said T’helah Ben-Dan, TALMA’s deputy director for North America. “All across Israel — because it’s such a small country — the trauma is really, really felt. So in any given classroom, you’re likely to have students who have lost someone who is close to them, or someone close to them is being held hostage in Gaza.”

TALMA has served 1,223 displaced Israeli children since the Oct. 7 attacks and intends to continue serving as long as necessary, according to Ben-Dan.

“As long as there’s a need and we’re able to fill it, then that’s what we intend to do,” Ben-Dan said.

Providing moments of joy amidst trauma

Barnes’ first lesson on trauma was a visit to sites attacked by Hamas terrorists. TALMA’s summer fellows toured houses attacked by militants in Sderot — a town near the Gaza border — and visited the location of the Nova Music Festival, where terrorists killed 364 Israeli civilians. 

While city officials estimate 85% of Sderot citizens have returned, other communities remain displaced in temporary housing and hotels due to the ongoing war.

One such community is the Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a settlement of about 800 people along the Gaza strip. 

The Israeli government relocated the kibbutz about 60 miles north to a hotel in Shefayim after Hamas militants stormed the town, killing more than 50 civilians and abducting another 19.

Nearly a year later, some community members remain hostages.

Through TALMA, Barnes joined the Kfar Aza families in the hotel, teaching boys in the fourth through sixth grades in a makeshift classroom. 

Therapists and counselors accompanied many students to class. 

Barnes led several themed lesson days — like restaurant day, science day and dance day — to offer students an emotional reprieve. 

“Teaching English was a big goal, but it’s mostly about providing moments of joy,” she said. “Because the kids, they’ve been living … in this hotel, and they just want to go home — but they can’t.”

In the evening, she visited with the community members and Israeli co-teachers, listening to their stories and observing the memorials for those still being held hostage by Hamas. 

“People here are very resilient, and I think I have a lot to learn from that resilience,” Barnes said. “The kids that I worked with have been through the unimaginable.”

Hebrew lettering on Barnes’ right arm — a tattoo she got in 2023, which translates to “very good” — serves as a permanent reminder of her value for humanity.

“What it represents to me is just how we are God’s creation,” she explained. “We are good creations, and so we have value. That matters to me a lot, especially in education, because there are so many kids that fall through the cracks, because of little value of humans and their lives. And so this reminds me that everybody I’m encountering is a creation of God, and so am I.”

Showing love to both sides

Barnes is one of only 100 educators who accepted summer fellowships with TALMA this year, about a 33% decrease from 2023. 

A number of factors contributed to the decrease, Ben-Dan said, but the greatest was safety concerns. 

“I think one of the things about Israel is that — and while there’s currently a war and heightened conflict — there are unfortunately always these tensions and security concerns throughout Israel,” Ben-Dan said. “We work really closely with Home Front Command and with the security authorities in Israel so that we take all the necessary precautions.”

Several people in the U.S. told Barnes that she was being negligent by traveling to Israel during a war. While she understands their position, she noted that she wasn’t “taking any more risk than someone who has grown up here all their life.”

Others voiced their disapproval of working with Israeli residents due to Israel’s military operations in Gaza. 

“There are some people that are so against — and rightfully so — the massive, heartbreaking civilian deaths in Gaza that they’re on the side of lacking compassion to Israel and the Jews that live here,” Barnes said. 

“Where I stand is … if there is a loss of human life and you’re happy, then you’re at risk of losing your humanity. How many times in the Bible has the Lord asked us to love people who don’t deserve it? Who you think doesn’t deserve it?”

Her work among displaced Israeli children has only strengthened her resolve to show love and compassion to all people, she said — not just those who align with her worldview. 

“Part of looking at it through a biblical worldview is not losing your compassion,” she added. “Compassion for people who are hurting, compassion for people who are living a lifestyle that is completely foreign to us, living through hardship or living on the front.

“If there’s any room in you that is not able to be compassionate to someone who’s suffering, then you are failing at the mission of God.”

This piece is republished with permission from The Christian Chronicle.

Audrey Jackson, a 2021 journalism graduate of Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, is The Christian Chronicle’s managing editor.